The Street Before Christmas 2010

The Street Before Christmas 2010

by Edmundo Braverman

'Twas the Street before Christmas 2010
Another year over and we're at it again
No monkey is safe from Uncle Eddie's rhymes
And 2010 was full of greed, drama, and crimes

Top billing this year goes to Lloyd's Goldman Sachs
who robbed, raped, and pillaged like Mongols on crack
So brazen their hubris one has to applaud
Abacus, Paulson, and all manner of fraud

The year introduced us to Fabulous Fabrice
and SWAPS meant to hide the condition of Greece
They tanked the Euro till it was near-dead
and repaid TARP with secret loans from the Fed

Chronic unemployment was ten percent's fate
and B of A gave us Foreclosuregate
Housing prices sunk like a hole in the boat
while courts heard the cry, "Show me the note!"

Dodd-Frank was a bust, those dithering tools
they just gave us a watered-down Volcker Rule
A return to Glass-Steagal is what we need
to rein in all the destructive greed

Plenty of doubt about HFT lingers
after May's flash crash was blamed on fat fingers
The fact is investors are nobody's fools
they're aware of the front-running and shady dark pools

Stone disappointed every Wall Street fan
with a sequel that shouldn't have left the can
Shia LaDouche is no Charlie Sheen
For over two hours he stunk up the screen

Bernanke stood proud with a dollar debased
It'll now be a century before debt's erased
He injected a second round of quantitative easing
a move trading partners found most displeasing

It no doubt will foment a currency war
and cause both Euro and Yuan to soar
He can't get enough of this idiotic plan
Perhaps Ron Paul can hamstring the man

Grains and metals are off to the races
Short JPM traders were left with red faces
Investors want to own something real
and don't seem too interested in Obama's New Deal

All in all, twenty-ten was an interesting year
We spent like sailors while Europe's austere
We never seem to learn from the past
And for now it looks like the die has been cast

But there's hope for the monkeys who do their job right
who hit the books hard and work through the night
You'll get rich if you work hard and play by the rules
Maximize value and ignore the fools

There's nothing wrong with chasing a buck
but don't steal it from someone who's down on his luck
Accepting corporate welfare by threatening a crash
is writing checks with your mouth that your ass just can't cash

The guys at the top are what's wrong with the Street
but they'll be gone soon, replaced by those who don't cheat
Let's weed out the dicks with their greedy obsession
and restore a little honor to our vaunted profession

If you like this year's ditty, feel free to forward it at will or post it to your own website. Just remember - DON'T BE EVIL - and be sure to link back to WallStreetOasis.com.

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"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan

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"Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."

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